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The Curse of Shirley
The Curse of Shirley is part one of the second episode of Season 2, which aired December 8, 2000, preceding Courage in the Big Stinkin' City. Plot While Muriel and Courage are getting ready for Eustace's birthday party (which is the last thing he wants, as he could care less about his own birthday), Shirley approaches the Bagge farmhouse and asks if they have anything to help rid her of poverty. Muriel gives Shirley a bag of silver coins and money, a huge pie, and a board with tea and sugar cubes. Courage gives Shirley his golden tooth. Shirley then asks Eustace what he has to give her, to which he replies "THE BOOT!". With those words, he slams the door in Shirley's face, and everything that Shirley has been given is destroyed and ruined. The pie and tea are splattered in her face, and Courage's golden tooth and the money in Muriel's bag are scattered everywhere. Shirley becomes very upset at Eustace's bad attitude of laughing at her afterwards. With her mystical saxophone, Shirley places a curse on Eustace as his punishment for being a jerk. This curse causes Eustace to have a floating storm cloud with unending rain pouring down on him at all times, but the mean farmer does not believe in any curses. Courage must do something to stop the curse, but Eustace continues to be extremely rude and cruel to people, such as: angrily refusing to help Courage and his wife, Muriel, set up his own birthday party and still ignoring his curse in front of her; refusing to help to an old lady cross the street; not delivering a letter to Floyd's fiancée, due to him being attacked by a tentacled monster and being totally disrespectful towards another elderly woman and a long-haired man, whose attempts to see a movie at a theater are unresponsively blocked by Eustace's rain cloud, which gets the manager to kick Eustace out of the theater. With each of these things, the cloud becomes much bigger and darker. Eustace's curse continues to cause problems around him wherever he goes. Whilst everyone is sleeping, Eustace's rain cloud soaks the bed and Muriel has no choice but to tell Eustace that he has to sleep on the roof due to him ignoring the curse. While sitting on the roof Eustace exclaims "Bah, ain't no such thing as curses! No way, no how.", and takes his off his glasses to clean them, at which point lightning suddenly strikes, startling him and causing him to drop his glasses, which then slide down to the edge of the roof. Without his glasses, Eustace becomes delusional and begins attacking ordinary objects and people, believing they are monsters. By the next day, Eustace's birthday starts as Dr. Vindaloo and Ma Bagge arrive as the only recognizable guests for the party. Muriel needs her husband to attend his party, but Eustace is still on the roof. Meanwhile, Eustace starts seeing the chimney pipe as a snake, rushes towards it and goes straight down to the stove where he comes out covered in soot and scaring everyone: causing Courage to hide behind Muriel's back (hardly unseen), Dr. Vindaloo and Ma Bagge to leave and Muriel to become furious at her husband. But, once again as he stares at Muriel, he starts imagining her as a big monster, but in reality, she is actually holding a coaster for Eustace to stand on, because of his cursed raincloud, causing the floor to get very wet. As Eustace grabs Muriel and pins her down to the floor, Courage starts screaming and neighing like a horse. Regardless, Eustace takes Muriel and begins picking mushrooms off his body and stuffing them into her mouth. Courage now thinks that the only way to stop the curse is to get help from the one who cast it on Eustace, Shirley. Courage arrives frantically indicating his problem, and Shirley replies "The stupid one, he's stupid right?". Courage nods in agreement. Shirley explains that there is nothing she can do and that only Eustace himself can lift the curse "by finding generosity in his heart—and he can only do that by seeing himself the way he really is." However, Shirley tells Courage that she feels sorry for him and sells him a mirror to use on Eustace. As Courage carries the mirror to Eustace, he stumbles on the roof and accidentally shatters the mirror on his head. Courage is now holding up the broken mirror and is seen through the hole. However, instead of seeing Courage, Eustace, still in the midst of his delusion, sees himself as a little boy. The boy complains that his head is burning in the heat of the sun. Eustace immediately empathizes with the boy and becomes compassionate, asking the boy about where his hat is. The boy replies that he doesn't have one. Eustace mumbles that a little boy shouldn't be without a hat, and places his hat on Courage's head, then smiles. Courage stands there, puzzled. The raincloud, then, disappears and the curse is lifted. Courage helps Eustace by grabbing his glasses and putting them on for him. Then, while Eustace is in bed recovering, Muriel points out to him that he should thank Courage for getting rid of the curse for him. Eustace grumbles and stares at Courage, then sees that Courage is wearing his hat, and snatches it back. At this point, the curse promptly returns. Eustace exclaims "Bah, there ain't no such thing as a curse!" and is predictably struck by lightning. (End) Characters Protagonist *Courage Deuteragonist *Eustace Bagge Tritagonist *Shirley the Medium Minor Characters *Muriel Bagge *Ma Bagge *Floyd *Dr. Vindaloo Trivia *The second appearance of Shirley the Medium. *The long-haired man in the theater is the same one who appeared in Freaky Fred: ''he appears in one of Fred's flashbacks. However, he isn't wearing his cowboy hat in this episode. *Shirley's curse in this episode: "''Upon your shiny head, a curse: long as your soul lives in your purse, and with your coins you cannot part, your skies shall be dark as your heart!" Confusions *When Eustace was booted out of the movie theater, he wasn't holding his umbrella when he landed in the trash can. On various successive shots, he was no longer shown holding his umbrella. It is clearly unknown what happened to the umbrella (Maybe he left it in the movie theater?). Errors *Shirley claims she cannot remove the curse she placed on Eustace. Yet, in a later episode, "''Swindlin' Wind''", Shirley removes two curses quite easily. Considering she only removed these curses after she saw her victims show concern for others, it may be that she lied to help Eustace overcome his greed. *When Muriel reopened the living room door to see Shirley splattered and humiliated, viewers could see closely that Courage's gold tooth is nowhere to be found, the only thing left to see is Muriel's bag of coins, as well as her pie and tea. *When the old lady (as previously seen on "''Courage Meets Bigfoot''"), who wanted to cross the street, asked Eustace for help, she talks in a similar high-pitched voice. Category:Episodes Category:Season 1 Category:2000 Category:Season 1b